June, Month of the COMMUNICATOR

 

The COMMUNICATOR Archetype

 (per Debra Breazzano, LPC)

Mission: To link, be a messenger

Shadow: Chatterbox or silent treatment

Strength Qualities: Synthesizing, curious

Being a Communicator is a fundamental capacity of being human. As we learn about how best to communicate, or also how worst to express ourselves, we develop and cultivate a “Voice” which is distinctly our own yet which may represent as well a style of communicating which feels natural or effective. That part of you which has the ROLE of being The Communicator is a member of your Archetypal ensemble cast of personae that together comprise your personal Self. This month, I invite you to explore and celebrate your own COMMUNICATOR nature.

What have been some of your most significant positive (Strength mode) and negative (Shadow mode) role models for developing your Communicator persona? What characteristics have you learned from them that are embedded in your own Communicator part-of-self?  For example, from a high school English teacher mentor, Mr. Scelsa, I learned alot about communicating as a teacher: asking good questions and listening from the heart to help students progress from wherever they are at to a next level that suits their own interests or needs. From a graduate school mentor, Betsy, I learned about how to simplify academic writing in order to reach a broad interdisciplinary audience.

From blogging I am learning how to use common language and very open prose to communicate with a public readership. I highly recommend blogging to all writers and artists! Also from a friend, Jan, I learned many years ago and continue to try to develop the art of sharing feelings and engaging deeply in friendship. Yet, I have also observed in myself and others communication faux pas‘s and miscommunication, usually involving generalized mistrust; these are ways of communicating that I prefer to avoid.

Communicating about what matters to you, and listening from the heart to what matters to others, is important in and of itself, always. Communication allows you to exteriorize your thoughts and feelings. Often it is best to start that process inwardly, though, or by means of journal writing.

One technique you can use to increase your facility with communicating about what matters to you is to have a conversation, either in active contemplation/meditation or in writing, with your own Inner Guide or higher consciousness. Just this afternoon, for example, while waiting for food at a restaurant, I journalled an internal dialogue about something I have been worrying over in the form of a conversation with my spiritual Guide (I call him Zee). It worked wonders! He helped me envision more flexibly about some future concerns, and said: “Do not let externals determine your level of happiness or fulfillment.” Thanks, Zee!

images are from pixabay.com

So try it, you might like it. Just start a conversation on paper, and allow it to proceed naturally, perhaps in question and answer mode. Let it continue until you have arrived at some insights that help you progress in a positive way with your thoughts or concerns.

I welcome your Comments and stories!

Message in a Bottle, Part Two

Did you open and read your “message in a bottle” from Tuesday’s self-development tool at this blog (see A Message in a Bottle for You)? When I used this tool myself this week I found it to be surprising and extremely helpful. The message-in-a-bottle came to me via an active imagination or contemplation mode as a non-verbal but clear awareness. It helped me see something about my own recent behavior that I had not recognized before. I realized how I had invited myself to a situation with someone else (my agent!) in a way that revealed me as trying to control or manipulate a process that is really up to someone else to advance.

So, my message-in-a-bottle exposed me to a “secret” that my unconscious COMMUNICATOR was able to deliver; a secret which otherwise I would have remained in DENIAL about.

There is more to my story, too. A few weeks ago a trusted friend jokingly called me a “control freak”. This was in relation to my writing advertisements for some spiritual events which I coordinate here in my local community. I didn’t understand why she would say that; no one has ever described me that way before and I definitely have never thought of myself that way. Now in retrospect, her statement was a waking call in itself, something that might be called “golden tongued wisdom” or a waking dream that presaged the message in a bottle insight.

Maybe my inner COMMUNICATOR has been trying to get my attention for a while now!

As I like to practice taking an active role in responding to my own dream images, unconscious promptings and inner spiritual guidance, I responded this week by honestly contacting—by email—the person I had been overly ‘controlling’ toward. Whatever follows, so it goes.

It is often helpful to respond actively to inner promptings. It can help you to make progress in your life as well as to remain open to further promptings and dream insights. Acting in tandem with your inner Archetype Allies or inner guidance that you trust in any form and paying attention to dream and waking dream messages can provide the inner steering you may seek, even when it leads you to insights and awareness that challenges your complacency or your own longstanding ideas about yourself.

I welcome your insights and stories!